A magnified compact galaxy at redshift 9.51 with strong nebular emission lines

Hayley Williams; Patrick L Kelly; Wenlei Chen; Gabriel Brammer; Adi Zitrin; Tommaso Treu; Claudia Scarlata; Anton M Koekemoer; Masamune Oguri; Yu-Heng Lin; Jose M Diego; Mario Nonino; Jens Hjorth; Danial Langeroodi; Tom Broadhurst; Noah Rogers; Ismael Perez-Fournon; Ryan J Foley; Saurabh Jha; Alexei V Filippenko; Lou Strolger; Justin Pierel; Frederick Poidevin; Lilan Yang

doi:10.1126/science.adf5307

A magnified compact galaxy at redshift 9.51 with strong nebular emission lines

Science. 2023 Apr 28;380(6643):416-420. doi: 10.1126/science.adf5307. Epub 2023 Apr 13.

Authors

Hayley Williams¹, Patrick L Kelly¹, Wenlei Chen¹, Gabriel Brammer², Adi Zitrin³, Tommaso Treu⁴, Claudia Scarlata¹, Anton M Koekemoer⁵, Masamune Oguri^{6

7}, Yu-Heng Lin¹, Jose M Diego⁸, Mario Nonino⁹, Jens Hjorth¹⁰, Danial Langeroodi¹⁰, Tom Broadhurst¹¹, Noah Rogers¹, Ismael Perez-Fournon^{12

13}, Ryan J Foley¹⁴, Saurabh Jha¹⁵, Alexei V Filippenko¹⁶, Lou Strolger⁵, Justin Pierel⁵, Frederick Poidevin^{12

13}, Lilan Yang¹⁷

Affiliations

¹ Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
² Cosmic Dawn Center, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, DK-2200 Copenhagen, Denmark.
³ Physics Department, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva 8410501, Israel.
⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
⁵ Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.
⁶ Center for Frontier Science, Chiba University, Chiba 263-8522, Japan.
⁷ Department of Physics, Chiba University, Chiba 263-8522, Japan.
⁸ Instituto de Física de Cantabria, Universidad de Cantabria, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 39005 Santander, Spain.
⁹ Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, 34124 Trieste, Italy.
¹⁰ Dark Cosmology Center, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, DK-2200 Copenhagen, Denmark.
¹¹ Donostia International Physics Center, Ikerbasque Foundation, University of the Basque Country, 20018 Donostia, Spain.
¹² Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, E-38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain.
¹³ Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna, 38206 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain.
¹⁴ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California Observatories/Lick Observatory, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA.
¹⁵ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA.
¹⁶ Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3411, USA.
¹⁷ Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa 277-8583, Japan.

PMID: 37053263
DOI: 10.1126/science.adf5307

Abstract

Ultraviolet light from early galaxies is thought to have ionized gas in the intergalactic medium. However, there are few observational constraints on this epoch because of the faintness of those galaxies and the redshift of their optical light into the infrared. We report the observation, in JWST imaging, of a distant galaxy that is magnified by gravitational lensing. JWST spectroscopy of the galaxy, at rest-frame optical wavelengths, detects strong nebular emission lines that are attributable to oxygen and hydrogen. The measured redshift is z = 9.51 ± 0.01, corresponding to 510 million years after the Big Bang. The galaxy has a radius of [Formula: see text] parsecs, which is substantially more compact than galaxies with equivalent luminosity at z ~ 6 to 8, leading to a high star formation rate surface density.